Flooded Streets In Jacksonville's Downtown

Watch the video below, showing the high waters on Bay Street.  It was already receding when this video was taken.

On September 20, 2011, the tide of the St. John's River was high when a two-hour torrential downpour crossed the city in the late afternoon.  This is a worse case scenario.  The street drainage of downtown Jacksonville is meant to flow downward into the river.  When the tides are high, this is impossible.  By 5:00 p.m., the runoff from the rain had nowhere to go but head for the lower streets.  Bay Street, an extremely low street on the North Bank, is the second street from the St. John's River.  

With heavy 5:00 p.m. traffic and Bay Street flooded, cars heading north into downtown and descending from the off-ramp of the Main Street Bridge had to navigate through a foot of water.  At the height of the storm, the water deepened to nearly two and one-half feet.  A driver of a very new Mercedes Coupe exiting the bridge decided he could drive through the water on Bay Street.  As the experts will tell you, it is very difficult to accurately access the depth of storm water and determine what lies beneath.  

  

The driver's calculations were wrong, and the car was surrounded by the flood waters.  Within seconds, the car flooded out and stalled.  Luckily, a "Good Samaritan" was able to push the Mercedes out of the deep water.   

Four blocks north on Monroe Street at nearly the highest section of downtown Jacksonville, a manhole cover was lifted two to three inches into the air as the water from the flooded area pushed higher through the sewer system.

When Bay Street floods, other low lying areas like San Marco, Riverside, and even 3rd Street at Jacksonville Beach suffer the same fate.

Undoubtedly, residents of Jacksonville have prayed for rain over the past several months.  Guess what!  We got it.